An international team from the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia’s Fab Lab Barcelona is investigating ways to identify ‘weak signals’ of living harmonies being disrupted by our advancing technologies.
Background
While technology and design have progressed greatly, they have also produced imbalances that affect the way we live and work. Additionally, they have also contributed to the use of the planet’s resources to fill our homes with unnecessary devices and objects.
We must de-objectify and de-colonise the way we design technologies to make for a more inclusive and diverse futures. One way to do that is to recognise our shortcomings and experiment with them in a way that is productive and promotes a more peaceful coexistence amongst the living systems.
This event will introduce participants to the concept and practice of identifying these shortcomings via the ‘Atlas of Weak Signals.’ A lecture will outline how to use the Atlas as a tool to combat future challenges by creating opportunities to design interventions. Following the lecture will be an open discussion with the audience. Next will be a workshop in which participants will actively design for futures they predict via the Atlas, and introduce possible interventions to dissolve the wicked problems of our times. The evening will end with time to catch a drink with old or new friends.
About the speakers
Kate Armstrong and Tomas Diez are core Fab Lab Barcelona team members, faculty at the Master’s program in Designing for Emergent Futures and leaders of the Fab City Global Initiative.
Mariana Quintero works and develops her practice at the intersection where digital fabrication technologies, digital literacy and information and computation ethics & aesthetics meet. For the last three years she has been based in Barcelona contributing to research projects at the IAAC Fab Lab Barcelona and developing digital literacy curricula.